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Friday, August 19, 2016

The gig project

Familiar with the "gig economy"? It's what some call the power of one. Take one of this and one of that and one person here and there, mix well, and you've got a team ... or at least a group that might coalesce into a team, given some time and experience together.

But, there can be problems. Heads up if you are managing a gig team:

"Problem 1: The people on the projects were not interested in learning our system.
Problem 2: They were successfully able to ignore us, and were still delivering software anyway!"

Alistair Cockburn, noted Agile thought leader.

Note to reader: I've got amore from Mr Cockburn in my book, now in its second edition:"Project Management the Agile Way: Making it Work in the Enterprise".

Another note to reader: Cockburn looked for a solution to problem 1 in the details of problem 2. Well damn! don't fight them; join them! Maybe they know something we don't.

And thus the Crystal Method was conceived. Cockburn's big contribution in my mind was to recognize that teams should not be "over subscribed" to the strictures of a methodology. Some adaptation to the context and circumstances is allowable. He thinks of himself as the humanitarian of Agile Methods.

In my mind, history has proved him right. Common sense and the capture and repurposing of the stuff that has always worked has made Agile more practical, more accepted, and now pretty much mainstream.